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Origin of Boba Tea: It Refers to a Body Part

If you have walked by Chinatown, or indeed, cities with a large Asian population, you probably came across "boba tea" vendors, and there are like a dozen of them in Chinatown. The items are also known as "pearl tea" or "bubble tea". But have you ever wondered about its history? 

A cup of boba milk tea
courtesy wikipedia

The lineage of Boba tea can be definitely traced to Taiwan... all the way back to the 1940s. 

A gentleman by the name of FanShu Chang (Chang is the surname) worked as a mixologist in an izakaya (Japanese, lit: stay-drink-place) in the 1940's Taiwan, which was then under Japanese rule. After WW2 ended, Chang decided to specialize in hand-shaken ice tea by opening a unique tea shop in 1949. The hand-shaken tea was done by a cocktail mixer and the result is a smooth and silky ice tea with a layer of bubble foam on top, dubbed "foam tea" at the time, and it was a hit, as Taiwan, being a tropical island, is always searching for cold treats of one way or another. 

There is a bit of debate on who came up with the next iteration. 

Tsong-ho Tu claimed he came up with the next iteration in 1986. Tu had suffered a huge business loss when his restaurant closed, and he needed something to make his money back. He visited the market and saw tapioca balls, when often served with shaved ice and flavoring as a snack. And he thought: why not combine that with iced green tea? He said the white tapioca balls reminded him of his mother's pearl necklace, so the first iteration of boba tea was called 珍珠露茶, or pearl dew tea. And thus, 翰林茶館Hanlin Tea Room was born. 

Hanlin's rival Chun Shui Tang 春水堂, however, claimed that bubble tea was invented in 1986 by one of their employees by the name of Hsiu-hui Lin, who experimented with tapioca balls and several types of tea. 

The two companies were locked in a bitter legal battle for years and neither won after a ten-year battle that only ended in a legal draw in 2019. 

What was known, however, was the next step in the evolution from pearl tea to boba tea... 

The tapioca pearls are a bit on the small side, so Tu ordered larger pearls, then had to custom order larger straws as his customers were using spoons to consume the larger pearls. 

Then someone decided to name the larger pearls after a famous Hong Kong movie star: Amy Yip, who was best known for her 35E measurements. She's often referred to as 波霸 (pronounced "bo-bah") in Cantonese, which translates as "champion of boobs". And thus, "boba tea" is born. 

Today, you can order boba tea with traditional tea, tea latte, latte with an alternative milk, fruit juice flavored, with black or white pearls, with customizable amount of ice, pearls, and sugar or sugar substitutes... 

And they are all over the world. 

So enjoy some boba tea while you're in Chinatown. There are many sellers of such, and for the most part they are equal. So it's up to which variety you prefer. Some also sell Asian-style snacks. 

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About the author

Kasey is a professional tour guide and amateur historian who specialized in Chinatown History and Tours. You will often find him guiding groups sampling delicious food and learning interesting historical tidbits about Chinatown most weekends.

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